FAQ's
Will there be any updates as far as progression of the platform for potential release? Any prospective timeline for release ''' ''Jason - Uhhh… yeah. That's still a tough one. We're really hoping to release this year. A lot of the stuff you are seeing right now need a little redone to be more cohesive. There's still some features we want to extend. Our initial thing was to get a testable system out by the end of Q1, but I don't think that will happen. '' 'What are the plans for the stat system to use passive perception with fog of war occlusion? For example, traps and treasure chests. ' ''Jason -''' We're trying to get a stat system in right now. We want to have triggered events, and something like that would be possible. ' '''Jonny - '''We're going LUA based right now so that it can be easily extended and moddable. '' When you release TaleSpire, will you do so on steam ''' ''Jason -''' Absolutely. Steam, GoG, the regular channels. Jonny -' It's running on steam right now, and we'll probably continue to do testing there.' 'You already said that you want players/gms to make their own assets, models etc. Would it be possible to make state transition. For example, turn a Goblin into a Wizard with some kind of effect ' ''Jason - That goes back to scripting events. If we can get that, we can get this. Including special effects and sound effects. In time. '' ''Jonny - I'd love to do it, probably post initial release. '' ''Jason - '''This is somewhat of a tool, there's a lot you can keep building. There will likely be a 'simple' mode - dice, minis, and tiles. All automation should be optional. ''Jonny - We'd leave it up to the DM on if the systems are in use or not.'' '' ' Will there be provision for music cues when you swap between the different modes? Maybe battle music that can start when you enter combat mode, etc. ' '' Jason - That would be cool. If not, the panel would work. Would also be solvable with scripted events. '' 'Will there be a way to scale the hud for people viewing on large displays? The character portraits were difficult to read. ' '' Jason - Yeah. '' '' Jonny - The scaling is there, just not implemented. Will be a focus when we do the UI overhaul. '' '' Jason - Most of the current UI is a placeholder. '' 'You've mentioned not wanting to rig the tokens for animations, but have you considered setting "snapping points" on the models for items - weapons, potions and the like ' '' Jason - That would be coooooool. That would be cool. Ideally, I'd like to build a "HeroForge" type system for creating your own minis. Current minis, no. Future minis/system, I'd like it to happen. '' 'Any thoughts for Atmosphere UI? Leaning more towards configurable pillars, or a panel system? (I'm partial to panels myself) ' '' Jason - Panels! Absolutely. I'm partial to panels as well after playing Divinity Original Sin 2. '' '' Jonny - Making it to where UI isn't intrusive but still give you control. '' 'How is elevation handled? Is it a more fixed system (depending on model height) or one where you can freely set the height ' '' Jonny - Freely set the height. I can change elevation height between the levels, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this? (is doing elevation on stream while answering) '' '' Jason - Floating objects? Sure! '' 'Are there plans for single player gameplay? Maybe later in development ' '' Jason - We love Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, all that. I'd love in the future to have a single player type version of this. It would take some work, but it would be cool to have. Once we get scripted events, it becomes more feasible. '' '' Jonny - Might end up being a different product all together. '' 'I already asked this a year ago, but any news about what the buying system will be like? something like Fantasy Grounds, that only GM needs to have the app and serve as the host for the players just > playing would be very good. ' '' Jason - Our pricing strategy is still in the works. We have some vague ideas on how to price and package it, but we haven't decided. '' '' Jonny - It's a tricky one. I'm leaning toward everyone purchasing it, but we'll see for sure. It's too early to say anything yet. '' '' Jason - Maybe cheaper player versions that don't have DM tools? I don’t know. We'll see. '' 'Will the initiative system utilize the mini pedestals glowing ring when it’s their turn ' '' Jason - Does it do that already? '' '' Jonny - I don't remember. '' '' Jason - If it doesn't, we'll have to make sure it does. '' 'I think I recall you guys said there might be a mod store, so when will we be able to make content for it? Could you guys release the dimensions and basic requirements for assets ' '' Jonny - Haven't decided on the mod store, but it will be easy to put things in. We could probably release specs for characters. Tiles will have to wait. '' 'Will we be able to add our own music ' '' Jonny - Yes. We'll probably have to make a system to help with that as it's currently done in TaleWeaver. '' '' Jason - ' Absolutely. '' '''What is the maximum map size you can create ' '' Jason - '''I don’t know. It's like infinite right now. I've tried to break it, but it hasn't. '' '' Jonny - There's no sort of loading in and loading out area when you make large areas. At some point you'll get some float errors far away from center, but I don’t know when. I've been thinking about doing area base loads that help load/unload tiles out of view. '' 'Will be a way for the DM to modify dice rolls to auto-fail or auto-pass? As if you were rolling behind a screen and wanted to fail or pass a roll for narrative reasons, etc. ' '' Jason - Yes. We want to have a system where the DM rolls a 'blank dice' to the players, but the DM sees the dice numbers and can choose to reveal it. '' '' Jonny - The DM always should have the final say. Regardless of what rolls and calculations we do, the DM can say it passes or fails. '' 'How about displaying the hp as the blue circle under the character model? Would be a nice feature to quickly see your hp ' '' Jason - When we get a stat system in there that could be something we do! '' '' Jonny - HP is such a universal concept, we need to get it in soon to have a concept of death. '' 'Will there be spot lights, and effects to be used to draw attention etc. ' '' Jason - Show it to them Jonny! '' '' Jonny - We have it already, and it works really well... usually. It wasn't working well earlier for some reason. Probably something with the syncing. '' 'Can you turn of collision for objects ' '' Jason - Not right now. '' '' Jonny - That is a good point. We do need a concept of visibility. Maybe in the same system, we can say "it's invisible and has no collision" '' 'I'm a 53 year old DM...Love you folks and this product, any chance of seeing something on my own PC before I'm dead ' '' Jonny - It's not too far, feature wise, from a test phase! '' '' Jason - Yaaaas! Seriously man, we're trying hard to get this out to you guys. Just about all our free time is going into it. We want to see your streams! We really want it out this year. Just look both ways before crossing the street, and you should be good. '' 'Can you move your character with arrow keys ' '' Jason - Nope. '' '' Jonny - I kind of want it now. '' '' Jason - Alright, let's do it. '' '' Jonny - We'll see. '' 'You have little animations for attacking, casting spells and such. Are there any plans for looping animations, such as the token wobbling around, laying on the floor, or floating ' '' Jason - Probably, yeah. '' '' Jonny - We're going to be adding more of these. One of the reasons we want LUA in is so that we can more easily run custom scenarios for emotes. '' 'What is your favorite feature so far? favorite feature to come ' '' Jason - Still the dice! '' '' Jonny - Dice are so fun to roll that we had to implement cinematic mode to stop players from rolling while the DM narrates. It was like herding cats. '' '' Jason - Favorite to come would probably be the hp tracker. '' '' Jonny - I'm excited about that stuff after brainstorming automation. '' 'I know this is pretty far in the future, but what is your perspective on VR in TaleSpire ' '' Jason - It would be amazing. It's another thing we'll just have to see what happens. Once TaleSpire is released, we're still going to be working on it. We're not going to stop. :) '' 'Has there been any work or progress on flying objects such as invisible platforms or something to indicate flying ' '' Jason - Not yet, but we can possibly leverage the multi-level system to use it. '' '' Jonny - It shouldn't be too difficult to make an offset, it's just how to visualize it. '' 'I’m not familiar with Unity that much but have you guys considered maxing a random tile generator to break up the tile repetition ' '' Jonny - We went for a 'printed tile' approach. When you're dragging out tiles they will auto-rotate to help randomize your visuals a bit. '' '' Jason - Randomizing rotation of the tile when place will help. '' 'Are you going to expose live gamedata via something like a websocket ' '' Jonny - That would be insanely cool. So, maybe. I've always wanted to do cool twitch integrations so that people could see the data on streams. Not sure how that will work yet, but I'd love to. '' '' Jason - Imagine viewers controlling monsters during a stream. That'd be nuts! '' 'A stream or two ago it was asked about Dice trays and dice towers, are these still being considered ' '' Jason - Hahahahaha! You're not the only one who wants it. Ya know what? I'm going to try to make a dice tray for next stream! '' '' Jonny - We did do some testing. Personal opinion is that it feels clunky. That you have to move out of the main table to roll. Maybe if we make it separate from the table itself? We could do more experimentation with it. '' 'Any discord api intevration ' '' Jonny - I've spoken to discord briefly. Would be cool to implement them using their GameBridge thing. Really want to, just haven't had time. '' 'What files does TaleSpire support for 3d modeling ' '' Jonny - Anything that Unity supports '' 'Will we be able to script games? So I can create an adventure for people, let them download and play through it ' '' Jonny - To a certain degree. Current version is meant to be played in a multiplayer setting with a DM. However we are working on a sort of campaign system, including notes, and some amount of scripting via TaleWeaver to add more functionality. '' We're hoping to move more into LUA ourselves which will help open up modding. ' ' '''Why do dice interact with the environment? Seems pretty broken to me. '' Jonny - '''Personally, I really like that it interacts. The numbers are going to be random regardless. '' '' Jason - I think it gives it more of a tabletop feel. I really like the physicality of the dice. Though the physics could probably use a touch up. '' '' Jonny - The colliders on the environment could probably use a touch up, where the dice could use a different one. '' 'It's been said that the plan is for TaleSpire to be system agnostic. Will there be various dice designs to support this? For example, Green Ronin's AGE system uses different colored D6. ' '' Jason - Yeah. I don't see a problem with this. At the moment, it's already fairly rule agnostic. Different dice and symbols might be left up to the modding community. '' 'Are any of the built-in features connected to any kind of ruleset/rulebook? Will it be possible to mod the interface in a way to support custom rules ' '' Jason - We are working on a stat system right now, that is fairly system agnostic. What we want to do for our side is work with the 5e OGL just to get some form of sheet and automation in. '' '' Jonny - When we add in our scripting, there will be support for adding and fetching stats for rolls. The idea is that it should be fairly easy to add in different types of rule systems that can give suggestions for the players/DM. We'll see where it takes us. Once we start testing with more groups, we'll see what direction people want TaleSpire to take. '' 'Instead of having it interact with the environment, could you have a "dice tray" slightly off the board/environment ' '' Jason - We could easily make a dice tray off to the side of the environment. '' '' Jonny - I'm hoping we make the dice easy enough to read so that we can give you some sort of UI to read the output. We want to help players play the game quickly. '' 'What about dice towers ' '' Jason - Let's do it man! It's pretty fun to drop dice down in them. '' '' Jonny - There are some code things we need to fix to make sure the dice would actually tumble down properly. '' 'Is there going to be a way to have multiple layers to a map in the case of multi-story houses or basements ' '' Jonny - That's something I'm working on. I really hope we're able to pull it off. '' 'How big is the team behind TaleSpire ' '' Jason - 4 people! '' '' Jonny - It's a spare time project '' 'Will there be a standard suite of figure models and tiles included or will it be up to the players/gm to create assets ' '' Jason - There will definitely be standard set. We haven't worked out what's in the initial release, but there will be standard tilesets and minis. '' '' Jonny - We need to fill out our tilesets that we have. '' '' Jason - TaleWeaver will be able to be used for people to make their own tiles and minis as well. '' '' Jonny - '''We'll make multiple building tools to help this too. Such as stuff to make and save an entire room as a preset. '' --- The FAQ's are from the current Discord FAQ thread.